


there is no repose like that of the deep green woods

by mechanonymouse



Category: Original Work
Genre: Adoption, Co-parents to lovers, F/F, Raising child from another culture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-07
Updated: 2019-09-07
Packaged: 2020-10-12 01:16:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,690
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20555810
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mechanonymouse/pseuds/mechanonymouse
Summary: The inclination to believe in the fantastic may strike some as a failure in logic, or gullibility, but it's really a gift. A world that might have Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster is clearly superior to one that definitely does not.Ren is observing an adult human in their forest when the humans abandon the next child which changes the experience in a good way.





	there is no repose like that of the deep green woods

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sweetcarolanne](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sweetcarolanne/gifts).

When she first met Nora, Ren thought she was another child the humans had left in her and her family’s forest. An older child maybe, but Nora was the same height as her littlest brother, and he was only seven. Sitting in the forest, covered in the cloths humans used to conceal their hairless bodies, and quietly looking around she didn’t look much like a normal abandoned child. 

Ren wasn’t sure what to think when she realised Nora was an adult human. She fascinated Ren; she fitted in the dense pine forest in a way no human Ren had ever seen before had, and she was beautiful. Her hair was black, thick and tightly-curled, but her arms were as hairless as any other human, and like all humans she covered her hairlessness with cloths, but hers weren’t bright and artificial. She was tiny; Ren could easily have lifted her and carried her away. She wandered the forest using the strange box that so fascinated humans, a camera, to take photos - exact reproductions of what she saw that did not damage the forest - and taking notes. She did no damage, unlike the other adult humans Ren had seen, and she left nothing but her footsteps and the occasional empty berry bush behind. 

In Ren’s mind, humans were strange monsters who trampled through her home, damaging it and leaving their most vulnerable to die on the edges of the forest. She and her family claimed them as the forest’s children, just as they were, Children of the Forest. 

Nora found the next child left behind after she came to the forest. A skinny little girl with a big round belly and big round eyes, no hair on her body to keep her warm and very little of the cloths humans used to cover themselves instead, despite the crisp fall evening. She cowered behind a large tree as Nora tried to lure her to her with one of the strange solid bars of food humans liked so much. Ren dithered behind Nora. She should help the girl but she didn’t want to reveal herself to an adult human. Finally, after what seemed like an age, the child, Meggy, ran to grab the bar and Nora dropped a large cloth over the top of her.

The child took fright - and so did Ren, preparing to tackle Nora and stop her from harming Meggy - fleeing back behind the tree clutching the bar and the cloth Nora had draped over her. Nora settled back on her heels and opened another of the packages humans keep their food in, holding it open in front of her. 

Ren and Meggy watched Nora dubiously as Meggy ate the strange bar but she made no other moves. When the bar was gone, Nora was still sitting on her haunches, food held out in front of her, and Meggy’s stomach was growling as they slowly, cautiously began to approach her: Ren to be able to better protect Meggy if Nora tried to hurt her, and Meggy for the food. Nora made no sudden moves, letting Meggy take the food and settle down to eat it before beginning to speak, introducing herself and trying to get Meggy’s name. 

When Meggy had fallen asleep under the big cloth, Nora dug out a box from her bag and poked it before cursing. Not trusting her, Ren stayed to watch them all night but Nora didn’t harm Meggy in anyway. 

The next morning, Meggy saw Ren. The magic that hid them from humans never quite worked on children. Like most children, Meggy was fascinated by Ren. She and Ren cautiously watched each other as Nora fed Meggy and broke camp. Ren continued watching as Nora tried to take Meggy out of the forest and the little girl screamed and tried to run from her. 

“Please, baby.” Nora pleaded, “I don’t have signal. I need to get you help and food.”

Meggy broke from her and ran blindly towards Ren who caught her, stepping out from the concealing magic into view. “I can give her—” Ren caught herself remembering she hadn’t seen Nora eat since she found Meggy. “—you both food.”

Nora screamed. Ren expected her to run, but instead she came at her, kicking and hitting until she had Meggy, and then ran, carrying the girl until she fell, twisting to cushion Meggy’s fall with her body. Concerned, Ren followed, a handful of nuts in her hand. Copying Nora’s earlier posture she knelt, hand outstretched, more than an arm's reach away. 

Nora was slow to move, but Meggy wriggled out of her grasp before Nora had recovered from her fall and was grabbing nuts out of Ren’s hand quickly. “I’m Ren. Who are you?”

“You’re a Bigfoot.” Nora said slowly. 

Meggy, with the curiosity of a fed child, was gently pulling at her arm fur. Thoughtlessly, Ren swept her into her lap, where the child would be warmer. “Ren,” she corrected.

“Meggy,” the girl in her lap said, taking another nut and snuggling into Ren’s thick fur. Her bare feet and legs were icy against Ren’s skin. 

Nora still hadn’t said anything. 

“Are you hungry?”

“Bigfeet aren’t real,” Nora said. “I must have eaten something off or …” she trailed off. “Come on, Meggy. We’ve got to get you to a hospital.”

“A hospital? Is that another place you humans dump your children?” Ren asked. She very carefully kept her body loose and comforting to the child in her lap, but was prepared to leap up with her and run. 

“What?!” Nora asked. “No! It’s a place to find out if she’s hurt and reunite her with her family.”

“No.” Meggy tried to get out of Ren’s lap and began sobbing. Gently but firmly Ren held her close. 

“We know why she’s here. Her family left her for the forest to claim, and we claim her.” Ren instinctively rocked the sobbing child. “She’s a Child of the Forest now.”

Nora’s stomach rumbled and she rubbed a dirty hand over her suddenly very tired-looking face. Her skin was almost as dark as the loam she had smeared across it, but Ren thought it was a far more attractive colour. “We have to. She might be hurt.”

“Then I’ll take her to Mother.” Ren said, reasonably. She dithered for a moment, she could easily outrun this human, but she was curious. Mama said humans never believed each other about Children of the Forest existing, and it would be easy to stop her retracing her steps back to their home. Ren nodded to herself. “She’s our healer, plus she’ll have food. You’ll feel better after a good meal and sleep.” She stood, sweeping the child up, who clung to her front. 

“Food?” Meggy asked.

A wave of tenderness crashed over Ren and she hugged Meggy close. “Food and a warm bed for you.”

“We— You can’t just take her.” Nora scrambled to her feet, complaining. “It’s illegal.”

“Your laws don’t matter here.” She wasn’t walking particularly fast but Nora had to run to keep up, her little legs taking two steps for each of Ren’s. Watching her, Ren had been impressed by how easily she moved through the forest, compared to every other adult human Ren had seen, but moving together, it was obvious she didn’t know the forest the way Ren did, and had to mind each step. 

Nora kept up a steady stream of reasoning, trying to make Ren turn around and let her take Meggy to her hospital, until they entered the camp and she suddenly cut off mid-sentence. 

“Another child.” Mama looked up from blanket she was weaving. “Humans— And an adult human. Ren, you know better than to bring one into our midst.” She stood and reached out her arms for Meggy. “Let’s have a look at you, sweet child.” When Meggy was settled in her lap, she said without looking up, “Ren, get rid of her.”

“I’m not leaving.” Nora tried to look tough, but she reminded Ren of a baby wolf trying to threaten an adult. “I don’t trust you not to hurt her.”

Ren could see her mother calculating as she ran gentle hands over Meggy. “There’s stew on the fire. Give them both a bowl.”

Mama judged that Meggy hadn’t been injured but that she was in an advanced state of malnourishment and very dirty. After Nora and Meggy had eaten and were yawning by the fire, Ren gathered Meggy to her and took a hair pick to her matted hair, quietly telling her a fairytale about the first Children of the Forest. Nora watched distrusting, but tiredness was making her eyes close against her will. The glow of the fire against her face cast interesting shadows, highlighting her high cheekbones and narrow jawline. 

Nora didn’t trust them not to hurt Meggy, but Jak and Ren both agreed they hadn’t seen her act like a normal human so Mama and Mimi agreed she could stay until she was willing to leave Meggy, or she proved herself to be dangerous to them, but she was Ren’s responsibility as much as Meggy was. 

“Do you really believe humans and Children of the Forest are related?” Nora asked, referencing the story Ren had told Meggy. 

“We know you are. The children humans leave become like us once they join our community.” Ren explained. “When they come to us they are hairless, little and vulnerable, but the longer they stay, the more like us they become, until they’re big and strong.” Ren tickled Meggy making her shriek with joy and mimed a wolf threatening to eat her up.

She released Meggy, clean and covered in a cloth she had seen Nora wearing, to run after her cousins. Then Mimi distracted Nora by showing her an herb that Nora didn’t believe grew in this forest, and they were off, comparing Nora’s books to Mimi’s herbs, although Ren noticed that Nora kept an eye on Meggy. 

* * *

Nora was gorgeous, Ren thought, carrying Meggy on her hip as they moved the camp deeper into the forest for winter. The lingering morning mist left droplets clinging to her tight curls, and she was discussing something with Mimi that Ren couldn’t hear. In the five days she had been at camp, she had been quiet, polite and showed none of the behaviours in Grandma’s stories of humans, or that Ren and Jak had observed, nor had she abandoned Meggy, sharing the work of caring for her with Ren, even as she seemed to begin trusting Ren and her family, letting Meggy out of her sight with them.

“Stop mooning and hurry up,” Jak yelled, throwing the pack Nora had come with at her. “Last one to camp has to raise the hut.” He raced off past everyone else, despite the heavy load on his back. Laughing, Ren ran after him, trusting Meggy to Nora. 

That should have felt strange, trusting her child, her first child, to a human, but she was confident that Meggy was safe with Nora. 

They travelled all day, eating as they walked, to come to their normal winter camp deep in the forest, raised from the spring floods, and sheltered by steep cliffs and thick forest from the prevailing winds. To Nora, Meggy and the youngest members of the family, this was a strange new place, and they were uncertain, trying to stick close to the central hearth Jak had set up on arrival, and getting underfoot of the people building the huts. 

Mimi started singing a foraging song, drawing the younger ones to her. Her voice was a low grumbling tone that had comforted Ren to sleep. When her song had come to an end she had drawn them into the forest, where Ren remembered collecting mushrooms in late fall when she was younger.

“Mimi sing?” Meggy’s piping voice carried over to them. Ren was surprised to hear Nora’s sweet high voice singing a strange song. She supposed Nora was Meggy’s Mimi if she was Meggy’s Mama. That was a strange thought, one that twisted her stomach in pleasant ways. 

Sitting in their new camp with her own hut for the first time, and Meggy sleeping safely in her own bed, exhausted from the excitement of the trip and the celebration, Ren felt like an adult for the first time. Nora’s curious gaze felt like it never left her once she returned from foraging, but it must have, because every time Ren looked across, she had been industriously working on setting up camp or telling some story to the children to keep them out of the way. She hadn’t complained when her things were placed in Ren’s new hut. Three beds and Nora’s bag, made from its strange material, rested next to Ren’s pouches like she was here to stay. 

Now she was dancing, like she had no concerns in the world, with Ren’s cousins and siblings, her face flushed from the beer they had been drinking. She was captivating. Ren couldn’t tear her eyes off her. She wanted to make that big wide smile spread over Nora’s face. When her cousin Mil spun Nora round, then sank to the ground laughing, she felt herself growl.

“C’mon.” Nora was in front of her, trying to pull her to her feet. “Come dance with us.” Her tone was laughing, and her eyes glittered with joy. Ren didn’t normally dance; she felt awkward and slow compared to Mil and the others, but if it would make Nora smile, she would.

She let herself be pulled out into the dancing crowd and into the chaotic-seeming dancing. Following the dance always seemed impossible to Ren, and if you didn’t keep time with the ever-changing rhythm and movement of the other dancers, you would inevitably crash into your neighbours, but Nora led them effortlessly. Before Ren knew it, she was spinning Nora around her feet, a foot above the ground, and Nora was laughing breathlessly. Ren didn’t know what made her think it was a good idea, but she was kissing Nora, and there was no way Nora could get away, and Ren knew this was a bad idea. Nora would never trust her to look after Meggy now. She tried to pull away and put Nora down, but Nora’s hands were tangled in the long hair on Ren’s head, her legs had come up to wrap around Ren’s waist, and she was kissing back. Her flat, hairless face felt strange against Ren’s, and Ren could feel her smiling into the kiss, making it awkward and sloppy but still better than any other kiss Ren had had, and she wasn’t stopping or showing any signs that she wanted to. Carefully, Ren walked them back out of the mass of dancers, not noticing how they split to let them withdraw, to the wall of Ren’s hut where they explored one another, until sanity and the chilly air pushed them inside to Ren’s big bed. 

* * *

Nora was sleepily looking up at her, Meggy dozing next to her, in Ren’s bed, which was not big enough for one tiny human, a fully grown Child of the Forest, and a rapidly-growing little Forest child. Despite the cramped space, this was Ren’s favourite way to wake up. To wake up with her wife’s warm, hairless body pressed against hers, still here two years later, even though she had grown to trust the Children of the Forest enough that she would leave with Mimi for days, or send Meggy out with the other children learning the forest. 

Waking up like this was more common in the winter, so winter had quickly become Ren’s favourite season. Two years after she had been left, Meggy’s hair was thick enough to keep her warm throughout the window, and she was no longer so tiny. But Nora was still as tiny and hairless as ever, leaving her shivering during the winter nights if she didn’t cuddle up with her family. Nora’s continued hairlessness worried Ren, even if it was nice to so easily be able to touch her sensitive skin, but Mama and Mimi seemed to have expected it. 

  
  



End file.
